My Time in Connecticut

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I attended a two-day seminar in Connecticut, hosted by my friend Z, and taught by another friend, world-renowned body painter Pashur. It was absolutely amazing.

We spent two full days learning technique and design from Pashur, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., eating great food provided by (and some of it cooked by) Z, devouring carrot cake and fudge made by one of our classmates, and generally having a good time. In the evenings, we just painted as the mood struck, watched each other paint, tried out each others' supplies, and got some great critiques.

Every time I do something like this, my painting improves, so I can't wait until Sunday when I'm painting at Ho-Ho-Kus' tree lighting to see how this experience has affected me.

The first day's class was themed in designs inspired by insects and flowers, and this is some of my work:



I love this drop-shadow technique too! My spiders will never be the same.

During the jam that night, I tried a couple things, just to get Pashur's critiques. They were invaluable, but this is what I did:





The second day of class was all about holiday designs, and in addition to an AMAZING and scary Jack Frost design I hope to use this Sunday, and some great ornament and snowflake ideas, I picked up the CUTEST Rudolph and penguin that I absolutely KNOW I'll be using!


Plus, during the jam, I knocked this out, loosely based on a holly butterfly Pashur showed us:

gz-Body Painting or Going Away

No, not me. Ha, you're not getting rid of me that easily!

Someone else... and so there was a big kids' going away party yesterday afternoon at Tribeca Cinemas. I was hired to face paint at the party, and because I knew we'd have two hours and a lot of kids, I brought my friend Emilie with me.

The party was great, with balloons, a DJ, food, and drink... and of course, us. When we first got there, only a few girls chose to get painted.

So I did what I usually do to try and attract attention; I started to paint myself as a tiger. Well, I got the orange and white base done, and picked up a brush with black to get myself a nose, fangs, and start on my stripes... and of course, a line formed! We painted furiously for over two hours straight, and I never did get a chance to finish my own painting, so I spent the afternoon painting with an orange and white face. I actually forgot about it until I went to the bathroom to empty my water and looked in the mirror!

Oops.

I was happy, though. I think I got my puppy face down to about 90 seconds, since I did what felt like hundreds of them. And we had some creative kids there. This very pretty girl wanted to be a vampire, and was very happy with her face, even happier when she turned around and scared the heck out of two girls waiting behind her!

I also had a young mermaid swim away from my chair.

Recognize the very quick version of the shell I practiced for cheek art? Speaking of cheek art, some of the most fun paintings I did were of the cheek and arm art variety. The kids were so into the painting once we got going, that ones who'd already been face painted kept coming back and getting on line to get arms painted; I think had some had four or five separate paintings!

Well, my first new thing for the day... I got a request for a robot! Um... OK. Let's see what we can do with that.

And then... a lollipop!

And last, but not least, a flamingo!

Of course, those resulted in many repeated requests for robots, lollipops, and flamingos. Of course!

gz-Body Painting or Improvements

Tonight was another meeting of the northern NJ Face & Body Art Guild, and I was finally able to make it again. I've missed several meetings because of the show and rehearsals. Now that we're out of rehearsals, and in fact there's only one weekend left, I've got time.

And I am now, quite literally, a card-carrying member of the guild!

How cute is that?

This month's meeting was especially valuable, as we had a guest teacher to lead our workshop, Pashur. Yup, the same great guy whose class I took back in November. He's really a great person in addition to being a great artist, and it was fun to see him again.

In addition to a great new parrot design, he showed us ways to really improve our sharks. Plus, I learned this great tattoo-style rose that, when filled in and shaded, is similar to an Ed Hardy look.

Polished up, filled in, shaded, and surrounded by some tribals or thorny vines, this will be a phenomenal addition to my repertoire.

The best part of Pashur's workshops are the games that get you to push your boundaries. One game was to fingerpaint fifteen 3-color roses with a vine, leaves, and a bumblebee... first person to finish won, so we needed to move fast and throw skill and "pretty" out the window. The range of outcomes was hilarious.

Mine was second from the left.

I can't wait to put my new skills and ideas to good use!

gz-Body Painting or What an experience!

Wow.

Friday night was opening night of the show I'm in, and everyone went out after, so I got home late. And then of course I was wide awake and couldn't sleep right away.

I got up on Saturday at around 9 a.m., leaving for Tribeca at 10, to get to the Film Fesival.

I found my place in Washington Market Park, and set up while Eric went to find parking - it took him an hour! Tha'ts how crazy and huge the fetival was. It makes sense on such a gorgeous day. The high was 88, and it was just partly cloudy. Perfect for this sort of thing, really, and I was in an area shaded by trees, so it was even more attractive.

Well, on the first trip, people saw me put stuff by the table with the "face painting" sign, and started to line up. As usual, people started getting on line for painting while I was still setting up. I set up fast, and got going... and going... and going.

I painted nonstop for 5 hours, barely taking a break for a swig of SmartWater.

The kids were freakin' awesome, EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Not exaggerating. Polite, sweet, fun. Laughed at my bad jokes, and I did a zillion butterflies but most let me match colors to their outfits! And most of the parents and guardians were also freakin' awesome. Seriously, I was thanked for doing the painting, thanked for making the kids happy, repeatedly told what a great artist I was, and thanked some more. They thanked me for even just being a face painter!

It feels so grear to be appreciated, it really does. This is the kind of event that makes the heat, the lugging and carrying, the practice, the investment, the shore shoulders and backs - all of it - worthwhile.

I heard that people were waiting on line for me for TWO HOURS and were STILL nice to me. I'm pretty sure that says something about their character.

People were so disappointed when I had to leave at 4; next year I will definitely not audition for the May show at the theater so I can spend the whole day painting. It's worth it.

While there, though, I got to do my second ever panda! And third, but I didn't get a photo of that one.

I loved this brother and sister too, a kitty that originally wanted to be a bird, and a robot! My robot requests are very infrequent, but a challenge is always welcome.

I also got to design my first mouse! This girl was such a cutie, and luckily, we got video and a photo of the final result.

That night, I was back on stage for a great show, as was I on Sunday afternoon!

After that, I came home to an email from the project manager of the Festival, letting me know that the "official" estimate was that they had over 300,000 attendees and thanking me for "helping to make it such a very special day for everyone who attended."

She commented that she'd wanted to say hi as she passed a few times, but didn’t want to interrupt me "while [I was] busy transforming faces into artistic beauty," that everyone seemed so pleased with my work, and that it was a pleasure to have me with them. It was definitely mutual!

gz-Body Painting or Go, Rangers!

OK, I'm from NJ, I know. And I'm really a Devils fan. But I married a Rangers fan, and since we met, he'd been talking about me painting a Rangers jersey on his all-white cat, Neptune. Neptune, in addition to being all white, is a lump. He's a sweetheart, snuggly, and likes to lie around. You can mush him to bits and he doesn't care.

So we figured it'd work fine.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell... we found out that Neptune is a little squirmy when being painted for any length of time. I should've known; he will only take licking/cleaning from his sister Catimus for so long before walking away, and I imagine this felt similar. Don't worry, I used all Snazaroo, it's perfectly safe. Child toy safety rated, even. And no animals - not even Neptune - were harmed in the painting of this cat or taking of the photos.

Almost none. My dog, Meg's, feelings were hurt, but she gets like that any time I pay too much attention to one of the cats. But that's it, I promise. And even that was fixed; I painted her head with a NJ Devils logo (not my best work, I admit), and she just lay there the whole time, happy for the attention.

Those sharp edges are just not easy on fur!

Practice, Practice, Practice

I can draw.  I know this.  I forget it sometimes, because as a face painter, I don't always need to actually draw.  Yes, I use elements and techniques from my zillion years of art classes to turn your child into a tiger like the one on the banner of this blog, but there's a difference between turning someone into something and drawing it.

When face painting, I've focused on the former and avoided the latter.  For me, the former is easier and faster.  And it's usually more fun for my model!  Who wouldn't want to be a tiger, rather than just having one on his face?  Plus, it's got that "wow" factor that everyone loves to have at a party.

Sometimes, though, a child wants a painting on his or her hand or arm.  Or mom wants cheek art so she doesn't have to wash her child's whole face, even if my paints are easy to wash off.  So I need to be able to draw!

When I've been doing a lot of full-face painting, I sometimes forget that I can draw.  That's silly, I know, since I started taking art classes at age 5.  Of course I can draw!  Look at this lemur I did for my husband at his request.

And then I redrew it for him, in black and white.

I drew him another one too.

They look crazy, I know.  I can "draw" when it comes to the face paints too.  After all, I did this dragon, which won me an Honorable Mention in an international competition (3rd row down on the right).

And I made up this cute monster guy while I was at a slow festival one day, and just goofing.

And I can putll out some strange things when challenged, like that seal I did at the Audubon Zoo.

Sometimes, though, I just draw a blank.  Or when I'm working and moving quickly, I end up doing the same sort of thing over and over.  For instance, flowers.  There are so many species of flowers, but when I'm moving fast, my flowers can bcome annoyingly generic.  The only way to combat this is to practice when I'm not under the gun, with a squirmy kid wanting to be done and get out of my chair and twenty more waiting to get in.  So I took some time today to practice.  And the results, in the flower category:

 

That's my first calla lily.  I also tried an iris, my sister's favorite flower.

Next on my list was a sunnny yellow daisy.

And this little guy.  A forget-me-not, I think.

 

We have variety!  I didn't stop at flower, though.  While I can and have drawn a dinosaur before, I wanted some new ones of those too.  So here are two new cute dinosaurs, too, a stegosaurus and triceratops.

 

 

I also tried some other critters, a lizard different from my usual, a frog, also new for me, and a seahorse.  I love seahorses and am actually getting a tank ready so I can own some real ones!

 

 

Continuing with the sea theme, some shells.

That'll be great when I do mermaid princesses too!  I'm also constantly getting asked for trains.  I had a train, but it was nothing I was proud of.  This one is much cuter!

 

And a for good measure, a couple more things that'd be handy to have in my repertoire.

 

Perfect for summer, that one is!

There's tons more I could practice, of course, but I've gotten hungry and it's a beautiful day out.  I may get a late lunch, and take the puppy for a walk.

'Til next time!